The present invention relates to an apparatus for allowing a user to input long words in a sentence in terms of elliptic characters without disturbing the continuity of thought. The apparatus according to the present invention is beneficial for increasing the speed and operability of inputting characters by way of a keyboard. It is also applicable for effecting an increase in the input speed when using handwritten character recognition or speech recognition and contributes to the increase in operability of the equipment.
When inputting sentences using a word processor, it is often experienced that words related to private affairs, such as a job and a hobby and to a person's own name are repeatedly input. Especially in a case where those often-used character strings are long, it is a burden for the user to input repeatedly identical, long character strings.
When using an apparatus which allows the user to input words by handwriting with a pen and tablet, since false recognition of characters input by the user may occur, the user has an increased burden in a case in which he or she inputs those characters and long sentences repeatedly.
There is an apparatus that allows the user to input characters or sentences portions omitted partially in order to reduce the user's burden.
For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Number 7-191986 (1995) a technology which is disclosed which predicts an intended word and interpolates omitted characters by referring to memories storing syntax coding rules and word usage examples, when the user inputs a sentence including words with omitted characters. On the other hand, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Number 5-28180 (1993) a technology is disclosed which prepares a table storing combinations of adjacent words, such as noun class--verb class and verb class--verbal phrase, and interpolates omitted characters and predicts an intended word by using this table.
As shown in the conventional technologies described above, word-to-word relation information between adjacent words is required to interpolate a sentence including omitted characters. For example, m syntax coding rules and word usage examples are used as this information in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Number 7-191986 (1995), and combinations of adjacent words are used as this information in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Number 5-28180 (1993).
It is, however, necessary to prepare such word-to-word relation information by referring to a vast amount of reference sentences, and it is not easy to prepare this information only by manual work.
The conventional technologies described above assume that a single word or character in a sentence is omitted, and does not mention the case that a sentence with plural words and/or characters omitted is interpolated.